Banffshire Field Club Transactions 1887-1893
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Transactions OF THE BANFFSHIRE FIELD CLUB. THE STRATHMARTINE BanffshireTRUST Field Club The support of The Strathmartine Trust toward this publication is gratefully acknowledged. www.banffshirefieldclub.org.uk FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1889. MEETING AT BANFF. A MEETING of this Club was held in the Reading Room of the Town and County Club on the evening of Friday —the Rev. James Davidson in the chair. Mr Robert Kelman, teacher, Boyndie, and Mr John Garden, draper, Banff, were admitted members of the Club. The Secretary read the following paper by Mr A. W. Farquhar, M.A., Bracoden :— ON SOME ENTRIES IN THE GAMRIE REGISTERS—1704-1804. Many things are recorded in the old registers of Gamrie. The present paper deals with some of them roughly grouped together, but sufficient material is left for one of my successors to gratify a future secretary of the Field Club with the promise of something to fill in an evening. Nomenclature. Strangers call the parish Gamrie; the local pronuncia. tion is Gam(e)rie. How it may have been pronounced originally I do not know; but certainly, from the earliest register, the spelling is Gamrie. From 1733 to 1748, however, it is spelled some half-dozen times Gamery, and it is always so spelled by Mr Peterkin, minister of Macduff, in his notes on that district of the parish. Gamry occurs three times; once, in 1712, by Rev. Robert Mitchell, but, as he was a law unto himself in the matter of spelling, that does not count for much ; once, in 1729, in an entry giving the contents of a letter from the minister of Aberdour ; and once, in 1731, with the minister of King-Edward acting as Moderator during a Banffshirevacancy, and possibly dictating, oFieldr even writing, th e Club scroll of the minute. Fairly enough we may say that the ordinary session-clerk spells Gamrie. The town in the west end of the parish is, at first, Down, then Down, and latterly Macduff. In the register relating to the affairs of Macduff, an entry of date 31st August 1783 states that from and after the 3rd of September the town will be called Macduff; but in the list of poor in November following, Down is employed throughout, and not till 9th February 1781 does the name Macduff occur. In the records of 4 the parish proper, the name Macduff does not appear till 11th April 1784. The larger village in the eastern end was called Powistown (1704), Powiston (1707), Powe- town (1719), Powiestown (1720), Shore of Gamrie (1733), and Gardenstown (1734). The smaller village IS un- doubtedly Crovie, though from 1733 to 1757 it is at least five times spelled Crivie. In 1712, Mr Mitchell, who troubled hie head very little about uniformity in the matter of spelling, gives Corvy, Cribie, Croby, on one page dealing with one discipline case. The estate is Troup, but from 1757 to 1768 there are some four times where the spelling is Troop. Of the other place-names I mention only Afforsk, which is spelled in the earliest register Auchrosk. Of the names of persons now com- mon in the district, Nicol appears in 1707, Watt in 1715, Wiseman in 1747 (on several occasions the name Weith- man appears before this, and never appears after, and is likely the same name), Lyall in 1718, and West in 1732, but these last two, at this early period, only in Macduff. Historical Notices. In the record of fasts and thanksgivings we may trace the general history of the country. Treaties, wars, rebellions, riots, successes, disasters, sins, and shortcomings are all faithfully celebrated or bemoaned; but these are common property in all the records, and I pass them by. I remark rather on the omissions. India is never mentioned, probably because the successes in it were successes of a company, and not of the nation as a whole. The unions of 1707 and 1801 were severely let alone, perhaps because the Privy Council and the Assembly wished these events to be as little referred to publicly as possible, at a time when men's minds were in a ferment. It will not do to say (as a cynical member of the Club says) that the deaths and the accessions of the sovereigns were not noticed, because the dead king was past praying for and the new king was not worthy of it. I prefer to suppose that distance from the metropolis precluded the people of Gamrie from mourning or rejoicing with their fellow countrymen nearer the seat of government. I am aware that, about the end of the 17th century, there was an unreasoning craze about the activity of the Jesuits and Catholic priests, and also that a very stringent Act was passed against Papists owards the end of William's reign, but I fail to find any sufficient reason why, in March 1705, the minister was ordered to read a proclamation against Papists. I am Banffshirenot aware of any special activitFieldy or overt act o n Clubthe part of Catholics to cause this to be done at this particular date. At first sight, 1709 seems a strange time for a sermon of thanksgiving for the restitution of monarchy, but when we recollect that the date (29th May) was the date of the entry into London of Charles II., and also his birthday, and that on that very day the jubilee of his restoration began, the date seems a fitting enough 5 one. The explanation may be insufficient ; but it so, my statement of these difficulties and omissions will form good enough pegs for some of the members to hang a few remarks on. Newspaper Notes. The kirk session was wonderfully kind in allowing special collections: and their sympathies seem to have been tolerably wide. There are to be found collections for Harbours at Pennan (1704), Elgin (Lossiemouth) (1707). Banff (1710 and 1727) ; for Bridges at Dye (1710), Old Meldrum (1720), Never (1723), Ellon (1791); for Places of Worship, at Portsoy (1745); Gilcomston (1771); New Byth (1793); for Churches, Lithuanian (1718), Op- pressed Churches of New York (1725), Heidelberg(1725), Breslau (1751), Pennsylvania (1752) ; for the Aberdeen Infirmary, almost every year; for The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (1736 and 1775); for the Law Expenses of King-Edward, in the great case against the town of Aberdeen (1724); for Sufferers by Fire, at Canongate of Edinburgh (1710), Monymusk (1732), Park (1734), Forgue (1739), Marnoch (1749), Aberdour (1762), and for a very large number of other sufferers both in Gamrie and in the neighbouring parishes. There is little to remark on so far aB the above entries are concerned. I may, however, mention that in notic- ing the collection for Pennan Harbour, it is stated that it was authorised by an Act of Connoil allowing a volun- tary contribution, and that, at the Laird of Auchmed- den's request the moderator 'recommended to the elders to gather it among the commonalty donation (as they did lately for John Thomson, jr., his redemption from Algerine slavery), the minister himself being to apply to the gentry.' This is the only reference I find to Algerine slavery in the Gamrie registers, and whether John Thomson was a Gamrie man or not the records do not state. The fire at the Canongate seems to have been on a large scale; the others appear to have been less destructive. Among the sufferers otherwise than by fire, were the widow and children of one Irvin, killed at Mill of Turriff in 1777, and William Stephen, an Elgin merchant, who had been cruelly robbed at Rothiemurcus in 1726. Regarding our own local sufferers, the only entries worthy of note ore on 2nd May 1756, when a collection was made for Peter Wishart, in Jackston, whose wife had died soon before of wind and snow ; on 14th June Banffshire1761, when one was made foFieldr the children of Alexande Clubr Wiseman, Gardenstown, who had been cast away in a boat at sea; on 4th June 1769, when one was made for the widow of George Adamson, Down, who also had been cast away; and on 17th January 1773, when a special collection was made for widow Smith, in Down, whose husband and two children had been lost in the ferryboat at Banff. It is rather remarkable that, in the 6 course of a hundred years, a sea-board parish, with daring fishermen, should have only two, or at the out- side three, such references to disasters at sea. There can have been no great disaster during the period, and such disasters as had happened must have occurred to persons well to do, or having friends that were very well able to provide for the widows and orphans. It is almost certain that there must have been more losses sustained than the ones recorded. Comparisons are at all times odious, but the four following entries attraot attention in the payments to the poor:—A poor man once a schoolmaster, 12s.; do., a broken merchant, £2; do., a poor man once a minister, £2 8s.; Christian Fandie, a converted Jew, £3. Happy Jew: poor dominie! Failure of Crops. The great years of dearth and scarcity, consequent on failure of crops, are 1741, 1783 and 84. 1796, 1800. The failure had been pretty severe in 1740, bat the session seems to have tided over 1741 with the extra payment of £72 (Scots) for '9 bolls of meal bought from Troup's factor for the support of the poor in the last summer of dearth and scarcity at £8 per boll.' The next mentioned famine seems to have taxed the energies of the session to the utmost, for I find that a meeting of the heritors and session was held on 13th May 1783 to • concert the best means of supplying the wants of the poor in this year of so great calamity and dearth.' The meeting round that a large sum must be spent on the poor and the poorer classes; and, in as much as the money of the session was all at that time tied up, they authorized the junior minister (Rev.